“I want my heart to be broken for the things that break God’s heart. I need my church to be a place where it is safe to tell the truth. The Many’s music feels like church to me.”

How can we lament, how can we hope, how can we cry out to God, how can we find the courage to work for justice and peace, in the kind of world we’re living in right now?

The Many believe we need to sing together and we need music that’s honest, full of questions, full of faith and doubt, full of longing. That’s the kind of music they crafted in this album. Not easy answers. Not easy praise. Not songs about a God who only loves some of us. Not head in the clouds “worship music” - but feet on the ground, heart in hands, scars revealed, wild and holy music of resistance and reconciliation and restoration. Music made for people to sing with each other, in churches, in living rooms, in basements and bars…anywhere, everywhere… in spirit and in truth.

With lyrics born from Scriptures, from headlines, and from their own experience, musically these songs draw from the diversity of the four lead singers– the soulful sincerity of Darren Calhoun, the raw bluesiness of Kerry Anne Pritchard, the gospel-soaked roots of Leslie Michele, and the pure, emotional indie pop of Hannah Rand.

Together, this uncommon collective of songwriters, poets, activists, uneasy prophets and unsaintly saints, remind us over and over again through these ten songs, that we aren’t alone, that God so loves every one of us, and we all belong here.

LENT

Lent is an invitation to follow Jesus into the wilderness, to embrace the rocky, desolate place we find ourselves in, to face our fears, our temptations, our sorrows, our aloneness, and to listen for the still, small voice that calls us to refuse to be numb, calls us to wake up, be alert, look into the eyes of the other gods we worship on a daily basis – success, money, power, comfort, security – name them and confess them and find the path of holy resistance.

The PDF of the liturgy that accompanies this music is included in the album download and was originally developed for the Convergence Music Project national gathering, 2017.

Lament

Songs of lament and longing. Songs to sing when the brokenness and pain in the world feel like almost more than we can bear. These songs, a collection we created for Openings, an alternative worship experience at Wild Goose Festival 2016, allow us to cry out with our hurt and questions, weep and mourn, but also find our way to love.

One PDF with the entire script and lead sheets for all the songs is included in the download of the album.

Advent & Christmas

Advent & Christmas 2015

Songs to sing when we need hope. Songs about how Jesus’ birth was meant to make the world right, include the excluded, bring justice to the oppressed, usher in a world in which love wins.

Tony Cummings of Cross Rhythms, UK has said of this album: "In a Christmas music scene overflowing with production line carols and banal Santa songs this album is a worshipful masterpiece."

Waiting - Advent & Christmas 2016

Advent is the time when we sit with the way things really are, in our world and in our lives, and hold them tenderly and gently with the hope for how things are meant to be. Advent is about saying there is this beautiful world we all want to believe in and be living in, but there's a terrible not-yet-ness about that world, and this is the season when we face that truth and remember what it takes to get to a Christmas kind of world.

That's the inspiration behind this EP, and especially the title song "Waiting for You."